Oasis
by Ione
Summary: "Faith is an oasis in the heart that will never be reached by the caravan of thinking." Hermione finds her own oasis in a place, a situation, and a person she never expected. A birthday fic for evendia. ONESHOT.


**Oasis**

A birthday fic for evendia

_Faith is an oasis in the heart that will never be reached by the caravan of thinking._

_\- Khalil Gibran_

Heels clicked rapidly, even and businesslike, along a cracked sidewalk fronting crumbling brick buildings, which sat sadly beneath a heavy blanket of foggy, musty rain. Every so often, that rapid pace would falter as a chunk of asphalt skittered away, accompanied by a muffled curse. But no one was there to hear it; even if any of the residents of those tired old houses could hear, none of them would care. The neighborhood wasn't one that encouraged caring.

Finally, the heels came to a resolute stop in front of one particular door. Then, there was silence. Broken at last by three hesitant knocks with a heavy brass knocker.

The door creaked open and a hooked nose peered out. The nose was the most prominent feature; nothing else, in fact, _could_ be seen of the face on which it sat other than a pair of glittering black eyes ringed with pale, drawn skin.

Those eyes looked up and down. "No," emerged a rusty voice, and the door began to close.

"Snape," beneath a baggy hood, a woman's voice, uncertain and timid, emerged, "It's me."

The door opened again. "Get inside before someone sees you."

"No one followed me," the woman hissed as she crowded into the tiny hallway beyond the door. Her carpetbag took up all the available space in the foyer and indeed, a few inches more. It sagged in the middle like an overstuffed caterpillar, desperate for a long nap in its chrysalis.

The woman shrugged off her hooded cape and hung it on one of the hooks in the hallway, unasked by her host, who stood regarding her with arms folded across his chest. She took a moment to arrange her stringy blonde hair in the dusty mirror hung nearby as an afterthought, but soon shrugged, letting her hands fall aimlessly.

"It's not like it matters," she muttered.

"How long before the Polyjuice potion wears off?"

"Another twenty minutes," she said, "I really needn't have bothered. The papers have had as much out of me as they wanted. And they're perfectly capable of making up their own stories even if they had not, after all."

"I have followed Skeeter's version of the story," Snape said, thin lips curling, though with pleasure or distaste it was hard to tell, "It seems what power you had over her has faded."

The woman started. "How did you know I had anything on her?"

"Please, Miss Granger. She had numerous opportunities to twist the stories of you and your dearest friends over the years, yet she never did to the extent she might once have after her prolonged story of you and Krum in your fourth year. Besides, Draco told me years ago about her animagus form. It did not take a great intellect to make the logical conclusion."

"I should have known it wouldn't have suited _you _to do anything about that," she grumbled. "Well, no matter. This story is too juicy for her to resist; I can't even say I blame her," Hermione's anger drowned in the incipient tears in her eyes. She cleared her throat.

"Well, are you _actually_ going to invite me in? Or has this all been a ruse to bring me all the way to Cokeworth only to turn me away from your door? Has retirement from the wizarding world really left you with so few resources for entertainment?"

"Claws in, Miss Granger," Snape's smile was vicious, "Please, do come in. Welcome to my humble abode. May I offer you some tea?"

"Thank you," she said, primly ignoring his sarcasm, stepping over her bag and into the house proper at last.

She followed his tall, lanky form down the hallway like following a specter of death into hell. Spinner's End only became darker and more dingy as it went on. A collection of damp rooms presented themselves in shabby arrogance for her perusal. Lounge, dining room, even library...they all languished under a veil of cobwebs and dust. The kitchen was at the back of the house. A collection of ancient porcelain stood on a dresser beside a deep, stained ceramic sink. With a silent jab of his wand, the battered steel kettle gave off a creaky whistle.

Hermione took on the task of preparing the cups, saucers, and teabags. It seemed too much to hope that the tiny refrigerator held any milk, so she did not ask. Black, bitter tea suited not only her mood, but the house as well.

They stood across from each other, Snape against the counter, Hermione against the range, both by tacit understanding avoiding the greasy laminate chairs and table. The tea was good; an anchor in an odd, off-putting situation.

Halfway through her cup, Hermione cleared her throat again and said, "I never thanked you for offering me a place to stay until...until it's all over."

"By my reckoning, you still haven't," he replied.

She bit her tongue, only the many, many years that had passed between their days as teacher and student keeping shameful, embarrassed heat from flooding her cheeks. "Thank you," she said at last, wondering how he could make a mere commonplace into a battleground.

"You're welcome. Having often been at the mercy of the _public's_ ill-considered conclusions without anywhere to hide, it was the least I could do to offer you one. Especially as it seemed your friends were not likely to do the same," he paused, searching her face with his bright, ember eyes, "Potter was always more loyal to Weasley than you."

She couldn't admit the truth of that, not even to herself. It was agonizing, like purifying a wound twenty-five years old. She had lived with the pain by not acknowledging it.

She wouldn't now. "He's running for Minister for Magic. He can't take sides in a messy case like this."

"Always the excuses," he sneered, sharp chin jutting forward, "Saint Potter can do no wrong."

"You should be more generous to someone who saved your life," she nodded towards the jagged scar across his throat, "He didn't _have _to save you after Nagini ripped out your larynx. I'm not sure I would have."

"Of course you would have. You married the Weasley boy; you have always considered yourself something of a martyr."

"You are unbelievable," she wanted to laugh, because hadn't she thought _precisely_ that for the past two years?

He was not fooled. How could someone who had taught generations of Hogwarts students be fooled by such a pathetic lie? She had been better at lying, once. Perhaps she had gotten away with her lies only because no one had ever suspected her of them. She was the brightest witch of her age, who always followed the rules, who was implicitly trustworthy. Perhaps that's why it took her so long to believe any of the lies about Ron.

She had trusted him. Implicitly.

"I'm tired," she said, shaking her head, "Can I unpack and lie down before dinner?"

He nodded, "This way."

Her bedroom was a hovel that smelt of mold and old newspapers. The carpet was sun-faded and worn in a groove from door to bed. There was a sagging bookcase and two lamps with moth-eaten brocade shades.

Hermione considered saying something banal and pleasant. She couldn't.

"Thank you," she said, dropping her carpetbag on the bed, "I'll just need an hour."

"No need to hurry. The fish and chip is open until 11."

"Oh," Hermione wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but it wasn't that. The idea of Severus Snape—_Professor_ Severus Snape, he of the tightly-buttoned vests, knotted cravats, and billowing robes—standing in a chip shop and ordering a combo meal with mushy peas, was incongruous to the point of lunacy. "Very well then."

* * *

Watery sun filtered through gray air trickled into her room at around nine in the morning, startling Hermione awake through her hangover. She rolled upright and kicked the bottle of Ogden's Firewhiskey over, spilling half of it across the ancient carpet.

She swore. Swearing felt good. She did it a few more times for good measure. Then, ever the dutiful woman, she vanished the spilled whiskey, capped the bottle, and stuck it back in the bag under her bed. Another little charm put paid to her headache and queasy stomach, but nothing short of a glamour would do the same for the circles under her eyes. She scoffed. She hadn't cared a whit for her appearance in school, and she certainly wasn't going to do so now. The whole point of hiding at Spinner's End was so she would no longer be in the merciless glare of the public eye while her divorce—

Thinking of it was putting pressure on a rotten tooth. Pain zinged through her body and she flinched, actually flinched away from the thought. Nausea returned, helped generously along by the greasy aftertaste of sausage and mash in her mouth. She hadn't brushed her teeth last night. One day in Snape's house was turning her into a recluse too.

Well, she refused. She refused to pity herself, to let herself go, or to eat takeaway for one more day. There were lines she would _not _cross.

Hermione dressed in a warm jumper and trousers, tying her hair back into a messy bun. A quick trip to the bathroom revealed a room no cleaner than any other in the house, and her nose wrinkled. Surely Snape, a lifelong bachelor, had studied domestic spells at least once? There was no excuse for any capable witch or wizard to live like this. Rose and Hugo had so often bemoaned the fact that they, while underage, had had to do things the long way round when Hermione insisted they clean their rooms. But it had all been for the good; Hugo especially kept his flat immaculate.

Had kept, anyway. Hermione had not been welcome at Hugo's since Ron's affair had become commonplace rumor and hints of her own were freely whispered around. How anyone could connect her name and _Malfoy's _after their well-known adolescent rivalry was anyone's guess, but—

She cut herself off and threw herself into the lovely intoxication of magic. For a girl who had always boiled inside her own skin in her frustration to change the world, seeing things done merely by ordering them to be done was always a thrill. Dust lifted from every surface and sailed out the window; blankets and sheets danced on a fresh breeze, then settled neatly back onto the bed; glass and porcelain surfaces gleamed after being scrubbed by invisible hands.

Within two minutes, the room was neat and bright as a new coin.

Humming to herself, Hermione set off down the hallway, flicking her wand jauntily as she went. Soot lifted off the walls, carpets shook off decades of filthy footprints, curtains shuddered off their cobwebs. The kitchen took longer. Each dish leaped off its shelf and into a bath of hot sudsy water flowing from the end of her wand, leaping in the waves like dolphins before soaring back onto fresh-painted shelves. Blue and white tiles revealed themselves on the wall behind the range, charmed little icons of dancing shepherdesses and skipping drummer boys leaping from stone to stone. By the time she was done, even the ancient kettle gleamed like silver, and its whistle was loud and true as a trumpet.

When Hermione sat down with a plate of buttered toast and a boiled egg, she was reinvigorated. How different it was to do this for _herself_ and not her _family_! She loved her children, she did, but ever since they had left—Rose had graduated from Hogwarts four years prior—the myth that she and Ron were equal partners in their marriage had shown itself as the fairy tale it always had been. And like a Sleeping Beauty awakening to discover that the dream of her prince was not all it had been cracked up to be, so too Hermione had emerged to discover that her dream of a happy marriage had more cracks in it than a shattered teacup.

"Didn't take you long, did it?" Snape grumbled, standing at the kitchen door, watching his stock of pots energetically scrubbing themselves in the sink, "Though I'm surprised you restrained yourself for the whole night."

"I was busy last night," she shrugged, "Besides, it's always better to clean in the morning. Didn't your mother ever tell you—" she caught herself, but not in time.

"No, she didn't," at least there was no vitriol in his voice; just a flat gray resignation. "She never used magic around the house; my father never allowed it. I think he enjoyed it, watching her scrub floors on her knees when he knew she could have cleaned them in an instant. He liked knowing he still had power over her."

Hermione didn't want to pick a fight, or she might have pointed out Snape's own oft-proved love of power over those beneath him. But now wasn't the time.

"There's more toast," was what she settled on, pointing to the breadbasket, "And we need milk for the tea."

"I'll go to the shop later today," he said, buttering his toast and pouring out his own cup of tea. Rather than retreating to his own room or the library, as Hermione expected, he sat across the table from her. As he chewed, she reflected that she had never seen him eat so close. He was surprisingly fastidious about the process, even summoning a napkin from the drawer after realizing he had forgotten one.

"So why live like this now? You certainly don't have to."

He blinked. "I tend not to notice," he said, "Do you know how many years I lived in the dungeons? You haven't seen filth until you've seen things even house elves can't scrub away."

She laughed. "I remember wondering why the lab benches in the Potions class were always stained."

"At least half of that was Longbottom's doing."

"You know he's the Herbology professor now? He was never a bad student...you just terrified him."

"But he always had you to salvage his mistakes," Snape shrugged, "Because of you, he was never able to fail as he should have done. How many times did he almost poison himself or the entire class? How many cauldrons did we have to replace because he kept brewing toxic sludge? Do you think such a student as he should have passed, even by the skin of his teeth?"

"He wouldn't have failed if you hadn't been such an overbearing vampire," she didn't want to pick a fight, she was in too many as it was; but she _couldn't _let this pass, "You were awful. To all of us except your little Slytherin pets. Who, by the way, were even less adept at potions than Neville. Better to have two trolls in the classroom than Crabbe and Goyle. And Malfoy—" she stopped herself.

It would do no good to have Draco's name spoken too closely to her own, even here where no one who mattered could hear her.

Snape seemed not to have noticed. "I had a facade to uphold. Do you think it gave me any pleasure to praise Malfoy and insult you?"

"Yes," she snapped, "I think it did. I think you were a miserable man who wanted to spread that misery around."

"Which is why you're here now?"

"I'm here as a last resort!" she cried, slamming down her cup, "I'm here because my children are ashamed of me and my husband is a lying, cheating rat!"

Snape assessed her with measuring eyes. Then, he smiled. It was a thin thing that showed none of his crooked teeth, but it was a warm expression nonetheless. It sent a chill down Hermione's spine; when Snape smiled, it usually meant he'd devised some new form of torture.

"I'm glad you have learned to be honest with yourself, at least."

She felt stunned as though she'd run headlong into a brick wall. "I beg your pardon?"

"You are adept at deceiving yourself, Miss Granger. I watched it for years. You let your friends take advantage of your intellect because you believed they cared—"

"They _did_," she snapped, correcting herself immediately, "They _do._"

"You let Weasley dangle you from his little finger because you believed you deserved no better. And now you let the world do the same because you think that is what you deserve. You were lied to, taken advantage of, and are willing to swallow the lie that it is all your fault."

"You're wrong," her tongue is numb, her face nerveless; it moves and speaks without sensation, "It's just...it's a bad time, right now. So many rumors. _I _don't even know which ones to believe. It's just..." her good mood was so far gone as to be nothing but a dream that fades with the dawn, "It's just a miserable situation."

Her head bent forward, a blossom too heavy for its stem. But Hermione didn't feel like a flower, or any other flattering metaphor. She felt like a middle-aged woman, whose body was used up and discarded, whose heart was trampled, and whose energy was running out, the last cup of water from the bottom of a bone-dry well.

"I'm sorry. I know what it feels like to be the victim of your own lies."

"We have _nothing_ in common," Hermione didn't open her eyes, "and don't you dare say that we do."

* * *

They steered clear of each other for the next few days. Hermione went to the market and returned with a few mushy tomatoes, some wilted carrots, and a head of spotty lettuce. It was her own Mum's voice in her head that forced her to chop those vegetables and toss herself a salad for dinner rather than order another slab of fried fish.

In the mornings, she rose first, making tea and toast and retreating to her room. The only exchange they had was the _Daily Prophet_, which he fetched from the front stoop and left outside her bedroom door once he was finished with it.

The headlines were relentless, screaming soundless at her in a litany of shame.

_Weasley Wife Vanishes Amidst Infidelity Accusations!_

_Weasley Clan Rallies Around Brokenhearted Son!_

_Granger Friends Agog: We Don't Know Who to Believe!_

Hermione read every word with her lips pulled tight, a conscious effort of will keeping her clenched jaw from breaking her own teeth. Some quotes were so full of ellipses as to be Swiss cheese; others, like a paragraph screed from Mrs. Weasley, read true-to-life. She couldn't forget the times Mrs. Weasley had taken other rumors for truth, especially where either Ron or Harry was concerned. Besides, why would any mother want to believe her son capable of an affair when she could easily blame it on his wife? It would be all too easy to imagine Hermione as a work-obsessed go-getter who would let nothing come between her and success, leaving her poor husband behind in the rush.

For days, Hermione's only outlet was to pace her room, imagining various scathing rebuttals, going so far as to draft a few letters that she kindled moments later with a vicious jab of her wand. No good, no good. It would do no good. _She_ had initiated the divorce, after all, and what people wanted to see in that was the guilty party making the first move.

So they would see it, no matter what she said.

She could only persist and hope that time would prove her right. She had to remember that things had often been worse.

But despite these very good resolutions, her brain felt like it was eating itself. So after three days of proud, self-sustaining resentment, she emerged into everyday life once more.

At least Snape seemed to have taken his cue. They avoided much mention of the past in their collaboration over the present. Upon silent agreement they traded responsibilities for cooking, washing up, and keeping the bathroom tidy. She learned he could make a passable shepherd's pie, and that he was fond of her oatmeal cookies. She unearthed an ancient ceramic jar in the shape of a tree stump from a cabinet, and filled it with cookies thereafter. He repaid her with a bottle of wine which they split across the library fire.

Life ran on, marked by little signposts by which they navigated their days. Afternoons of chess. Walks along Cokeworth's rubbish-strewn river. Evenings of reading in the library, broken by indignant asides as either Hermione or Snape took violent issue with an author's stance on their relative specialties.

It was after a particularly thrilling vivisection of Emory Eddleton's preposterous theory of elemental transfiguration that Hermione fell into uncharacteristic silence.

"Miss Granger?"

"Oh," she shook herself, wearily, "I was just thinking: I spent the last twenty years working in Muggle-Wizarding relations at the Ministry, where the greatest argument I ever had was about the introduction of paperclips into my department. Hardly the life of rigorous research I had planned."

"I did wonder why you took that post at the Ministry. It was obvious they were using you as a trophy; the first of the Golden Trio to accept the new, post-war order of things."

"I knew it," she sighed, "But we had just had Rose and Ron was working at Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes...babies are expensive, and I knew I wanted at least one more. It seemed the right thing to do at the time. I _did_ expect that eventually Ron would find something else, but," her rueful smile turned bitter as dark chocolate, "He was happy there. Whether I was happy or not at the Ministry didn't seem to matter."

For once, Snape had nothing cutting to say. "I have a particularly complete library. You could begin any project you wished."

She sighed. "I don't even know what I would do now that I have the time. It feels so ridiculous to complain about that, but it's true. I'm a middle-aged wife who's been an office worker most of my life. I'm getting divorced; my children won't talk to me. My _friends _won't talk to me. The only person I _can_ talk to is you, and if that isn't the most unbelievable situation I've ever been in, it's at least in the top ten!"

Snape closed his book on one long, bony finger and mulled over her words. When he did speak, he discarded most of her rant. "I have long been considering analyzing the use of transfigured materials in potions. Living here, so far from Diagon Alley, my experiments are often on hold while I wait for the right ingredients to arrive by owl-post. If I, and other potions masters, were free to use transfigured ingredients instead, it would save both time and galleons."

"Why haven't you pursued that idea?" she jumped on it instantly, eager as a cat on a mouse, "I can't recall a single paper written in the past hundred years that deals with augmented materials in potions-making; it could revolutionize the field!"

He swallowed, shifting awkwardly. "I am not a transfiguration master," he said at last, "and it would be foolhardy to begin any research without knowing my spell-work to be beyond reproach."

Hermione dissected that statement, then smirked. "Do you mean to say," she paused, drawing out the tension as he was so expert at doing, "that you're rubbish at transfiguration?"

"That," he countered, "is a very imprecise adjective. But...it is also not entirely inaccurate."

She wanted to push further, to really lay in the humiliation, but she was not a vindictive person, whatever the newspapers might say. "Well, _I've_ always been quite good at it. Professor McGonagall used to say that I should take over her post when she retired. So, shall we partner on this project? On the understanding that, should we publish, my name will precede yours?"

"Your surname is Granger, mine Snape. It would always have come first."

"Good," she grinned, "Then where should we start?"

* * *

Two weeks passed, and on the morning of the fifteenth day from the start of their unlikely partnership, Hermione woke from a disturbing dream. Well, not so much disturbing as _domestic_. She had dreamed that Snape had baked her favorite Banoffee pie; she had smelled it coming out of the oven, rich and sweet and fruity, skirls of shaved chocolate melting into the crust. He had cut her a slice but, instead of giving it to her, had taken a bite on his own fork and fed it to her.

Then he smiled. Really smiled. And Hermione found she didn't find his crooked teeth off-putting at all.

* * *

"_What_ is wrong, Miss Granger?" Snape slammed down his quill and glared, "Is it my breath that offends you? Or are you so distracted by this morning's headline that you cannot find any space in that copious mind of yours for our research?"

She startled out of her daydream and flicked her eyes away from his mouth, where they had been resting for far longer than what would be considered proper. "No," she cried, "not at all. I didn't even _read_..." she trailed off, because it was true. She _hadn't _read the paper that morning.

Sudden dread curdled in her stomach. "What did it say?"

Snape stood, heavily, and went into the hallway. She heard him fetch the paper from where he'd left it outside her door. Then it plopped into her lap, nearly upsetting a bottle of ink.

In heavy, solid, letters, dark as death, she read:

_Weasley Mistress Revealed in Pansy Parkinson_

The world flickered before her eyes. Pansy? _Pansy_?

Hermione knew she had never been beautiful. She knew she could be abrasive, demanding, and driven; a little bit like a bushy-haired steamroller. But she had never been evil. She'd never been cruel. So how..._how_ could Ron prefer Pansy to her?

"Oh," her voice was frightened, small; a child's whimper, lost in deep woods. "Oh. Well, then. Well."

She had to stand up, walk across the hall. When she was alone, in her own room, then she could dissolve. She had her pride; it wouldn't let her come to pieces in the library in front of Snape. Not in front of Snape.

"You didn't know," he said. His words came from a great distance and arrived at her ears blurred, uncertain.

"No," she replied. "I—no. I need to go." Standing was a complex operation that she had not the ability to pull off. Her toe caught the edge of a frayed rug and she wobbled, caught between falling into the table or the fire.

His hands closed on her shoulders and he forced her back upright, surprising strength holding her together. Hermione could feel herself shuddering in his hands, and it was shock—shock of the news, shock of their first contact, shock at what her life had become—that made her pulse race and her face flush. Just shock.

"Forgive me," he let her go by inches, checking to see she would keep her feet if he did, "I didn't mean to make light of...of all this."

"I think you did," she said, "You were focused on our work and wanted me to focus too. So you lashed out; I guess it's not your fault that your punch went wide. If I _had_ read that paper this morning, you'd better believe I would have broken your pasty nose for you. Again."

He stepped back, dropping his arms, defenseless. "If you'd like to—"

"No," she shook her head, overwhelmed, "I think I'd just like to go to bed. I'll see you tomorrow."

_And for how many more tomorrows?_

* * *

She stopped counting days. She lived at Spinner's End; she would do so until she didn't want to anymore.

Their research progressed; they found that transfiguration affected some ingredients' utility in potions, but not others. Isolating just _why_ these differences appeared would take a significant investment of time and resources, so they converted the lounge, which neither of them used, into a potions lab. Hermione made one trip into London to pack another bag of clothes—Cokeworth was chillier than she had prepared for—and take her trunk of school supplies out of the attic. Ginny helped her keep Ron out of the house as she did; it was comforting to know she had one friend left.

Hermione's dreams kept wandering. She did not dream of Ron.

One night, on a whim, she baked Banoffee muffins. She watched Snape lick a dollop of cream from his lower lip and excused herself to her room for the rest of the night.

* * *

"I think we have enough data to extrapolate a working hypothesis," Hermione said, "It seems that ingredients derived from reptilian and mammalian samples are not the same when transfigured, but plant matter and insects are immune to any negative effects. We should continue testing and see if my theory holds true."

"Miss Granger," Snape stood by the fire, one elbow on the mantlepiece, "I think we must have a discussion."

"Is it about my hypothesis?" she asked, "Because I think with what we've observed so far my conclusions are accurate. But if you think we should take more time and a broader range of samples, I would be willing to—"

"It has nothing to do with that," he shrugged off her words but couldn't meet her eyes as he shoved off from the mantle and paced across the room. His figure wavered as it passed behind the rising blue and gray trails of steam from their bubbling cauldrons. "It has to do with our situation."

Her heart sank. "You want me to move out, don't you? You meant this to be a temporary situation and I am taking up all your time. Of course you want me to leave; just give me a day or two and I'll be out of your—"

"_Hermione_," he groaned, "would you please, for once, try not to be such an insufferable know-it-all?"

"I," she paused, heart now leaping into her throat, "You've never called me 'Hermione' before."

"No," his throat worked hard, "I haven't. Are you going to let me tell you why?"

Her mouth was too dry for words. She nodded instead.

"Very well. I'm sure you," he stopped, "No."

He began pacing again, running his hand over his head. Hermione couldn't help notice how the weak firelight shone on the silver strands sprinkled through his dark hair.

"I'm older than you are by a good deal. I know that. Therefore, when I invited you to stay here, it was on the personal understanding that I was...beyond experiencing any feelings that might complicate our mutual situations. However, I now see that I was mistaken. Therefore, I hope you understand that I never believed this would happen."

When he stopped, seeming to seek her acknowledgment, she croaked, "Believed _what_ would happen?"

"Surely you understand me."

"I have been told not to be a know-it-all," she retorted, "So I shall avoid drawing any conclusions until I have more information."

Snape scoffed, drawing himself up to full, imposing height. But that height was far less imposing now that she was a grown woman and had seen his dirty socks dangling from the radiator.

"I have...feelings for you, Miss Granger."

She whispered, "It was _Hermione _a moment ago."

He sighed. "I have feelings for you, Hermione. Feelings that I know can never be reciprocated. And it would be unfair of me to allow you to stay here in ignorance of them. I know you will likely wish to go. Please know that, should you wish it, I will cede all our research to you immediately. You have all the necessary skills to complete the project, and I will lay no claim to it."

"You think I care about the research?"

"I know you do. I have seen you come alive again in this work," he looked at her with reverence in his face; it shone from his eyes like starlight, "I have seen your intelligence revive, your passion," he stopped, shaking his head. "Forgive me."

"No, don't," she stood, stepping nearer, "Don't stop. You have no idea...I thought it was just me. I thought I was going out of my mind."

He shrank back from her, like a child does when he thinks his father will hit him. "Miss Granger, don't go on if you don't mean what you say."

"You can't praise my intelligence with one breath and then insult it in the next," she took two quick steps and stared up into his face, full of fire and defiance as she always wished she could have been in his potions class. "I _always_ mean what I say. So when I say that I have," she took a deep breath; she hadn't flirted with any man other than Ron and wasn't certain she'd ever had much skill for it in any case, "feelings for you too—when I say I've dreamed of you—I want you to believe me."

Out of breath, Hermione panted quietly in the stillness, so close to him she could feel his heat through her clothes.

Snape shook his head; a tiny gesture of helpless disbelief. Hermione nodded. Then she stood on her toes and kissed him. Gently. Softly.

It didn't feel like revenge or solace. It wasn't an admission of defeat.

It was a new beginning. A fresh start. A wellspring in the middle of the desert.


End file.
